Early years

Natividad was born in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, the eldest of nine children, and did not speak English until she was 10. At that time, her mother married a U.S. citizen and they moved to Texas. Natividad attended high school in El Paso, where she was her senior class president.

After moving to California, she worked as a maid and cook for Stella Stevens and as a key-punch operator for IBM before turning to go-go dancing to make ends meet. Her stage name Kitten came from her shyness. At age 21, she had her first breast implant surgery in Tijuana, where it was legal, to move into topless dancing. Due to the tragic results of her breast enhancements, she deeply regretted having been talked into doing it.

Career

Kitten Natividad was introduced to Russ Meyer by fellow dancer Shari Eubank, a performer in Meyer's 1975 film Supervixens. Meyer hired her to narrate his movie Up!, where she was shown sitting nude in a tree, quoting the poetry of Hilda Doolittle and acting as a Greek chorus to the nonsensical action. Meyer was so impressed he wanted her to star in his next feature, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, one of several collaborations between Meyer and film critic Roger Ebert. He paid for a second breast enhancement and voice lessons to eliminate her accent. She left her husband for Meyer during the filming, and they lived together as a couple for most of the next 15 years.

After this, Natividad moved into pornographic modeling, mainly doing glamour or girl-girl shoots with the likes of Candy Samples, Uschi Digard, and Patty Plenty. The appearances increased her dancing income many times over. She incorporated a giant champagne glass into her act (similar to Lili St. Cyr), accompanied by the Bobby Darin hit "Splish Splash." She appeared as a guest on The Dating Game, one of a number of game shows that Chuck Barris produced.

During the 1980s, Natividad began appearing in pornographic productions, initially limiting her performances to appearing topless. Eventually, however, she graduated to engaging in hardcore performances, usually with younger men and women. She also founded the private photo and video studio Kitten Klub. She famously appeared as a stripper at the bachelor party held by Sean Penn to celebrate his 1985 marriage to Madonna.

In 2001, Natividad starred in the cult film comedy The Double-D Avenger, directed by William Winckler, and in it, she was reunited with fellow Russ Meyer stars, actress Haji from Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Raven De La Croix from Russ Meyer's film Up! In The Double-D Avenger, Kitten Natividad plays Chastity Knott, a woman who becomes a busty costumed crime fighter.

In pop culture

• She appeared on The Gong Show in the late 1970s and The Dollar-Ninety-Eight Beauty Show, which, like The Dating Game, were produced by Chuck Barris.
• She appeared in a 1980s music video for Mitch Ryder's version of the song "When You Were Mine," which was written and composed by Prince.
• In August 2006, Kitten Natividad appeared in a Playboy layout, "The History of Bikinis."

Personal life

In October 1999, Kitten Natividad underwent double-mastectomy surgery for treatment of breast cancer. After her breasts were removed, it was discovered that the silicone used in her implants was of an industrial grade. She has had corrective surgery and is close to the size that her fans remember her being. She currently lives alone with a pit bull and three cats (all featured in the 2005 documentary movie Pornstar Pets), and she supports herself with sales of her porn videos and phone sex. She appeared in the Adam Rifkin independent feature A Night at the Golden Eagle; according to her, Rifkin remembered recognizing her when their cars were both stopped at the same stoplight 25 years earlier.

In January 2008, Natividad was inducted in the Legends of Erotica Hall of Fame.

Selected filmography

Kitten Natividad has appeared in more than 65 films and video productions. Career highlights and major studio features include:

• The New Centurions (1972)
• Up! (1976)
• Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)
• Airplane! (1980) (uncredited)
• Deep Jaws (1976)
• Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) (uncredited)
• The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) (uncredited)
• My Tutor (1983)
• Night Patrol (1984)
• The Wild Life (1984)
• Takin' It Off (1985)
• Bodacious Ta'Tas (1985)
• An Evening With Kitten (1985)
• Takin' It All Off (1987)
• Another 48 Hrs. (1990)
• 40 The Hard Way (1990)
• United Trash (1996)
• Die 120 Tage von Bottrop (1997)
• The Double-D Avenger (2001)
• Night at the Golden Eagle (2002)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]